


Looking For Hope

by helens78



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Post-Movie(s), Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 03:12:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1803202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helens78/pseuds/helens78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik finds a visitor in his hotel room in Barcelona.  Charles has a proposal for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking For Hope

It's not the first time Erik's walked into a room and said the words, "This is a surprise."

It's the first time Charles responds to him with, "It shouldn't have been."

He's in the bed-- Erik's bed, Erik's bed in this hotel room in Barcelona, and how he got here, Erik can only imagine. He has Cerebro again, so finding Erik wouldn't have been difficult. Did Hank fly him here? Is someone waiting for him in the hotel bathroom? Could this be--

"--no, it's not a trap, Erik," Charles says, looking away and rubbing at his forehead. "I didn't think _that_ would be your first thought on seeing me."

"It wasn't." Erik steps inside, finally, and shuts the door behind him. A wave of his hand and it's locked; a few steps bring him over to the bed. Charles's wheelchair is on the other side, a gleaming mass of chrome and steel, the seat an unattractive greenish leather, a satchel slung over the back. It's near enough Charles wouldn't have any difficulty reaching it, leaving this bed if he wanted to.

Knowing that makes it easier to climb into bed and put a hand on Charles's shoulder.

Charles relaxes under Erik's touch, leaning a little closer to him. "Raven called me," he murmurs. "She told me you've been doing research on scientists. Geneticists. There's one you've been looking for here..."

"Ricardo Navarra," Erik answers. "And?"

"You know why I'm here." Charles looks at him. "You know I can't let you do this."

"His research leads in one direction. A cure. It's war, Charles, even if it's war on a different scale than we're used to. They want to annihilate us."

"Some mutants would take a cure if it were offered to them."

Erik grimaces. "Isn't your school back in session yet? Aren't you supposed to be teaching people to use their abilities, not fear them?"

"I do my best." Charles reaches out and cups Erik's face, and despite the argument, despite everything between them, Erik leans in toward that touch. "Sometimes I can't get through. No matter how badly I want to."

"And now you want to?" Erik leans forward a little further, a little more. Inch by inch, he closes the distance between them, waiting for Charles to stop him, or _stop_ him, make it a mental command.

He doesn't, and Erik gets the chance to do something he's imagined over and over in the year since the Sentinels: he kisses Charles, warm and slow, letting Charles feel everything Erik still wants from him. Everything they haven't had a chance for in over a decade.

"I want to," Charles whispers. "Let me get through to you this time, Erik. Come home."

"Navarra's research--"

"You have your methods, I have mine." Charles leans back against the pillows. "Alex and Armando went to Navarra to warn him off; he's likely two countries away by now. Hank is in his lab, ensuring his research won't be able to be used against us. He never did have any mutant test subjects, you know; his research was still in its infancy. All the same, I daresay he'll be too underground to make any progress now." He raises an eyebrow. "Will that do?"

Erik feels something fluttering under his breastbone; it's unfamiliar, nothing he felt in all those years underground. He felt it, once, with Charles-- before Cuba, before their separation. Back when it was the two of them and the incredible possibility that they might be able to unite their people, one mutant at a time.

Charles's expression changes-- his eyebrows draw slightly together, but his mouth is soft, the corners downturned. He reaches up and strokes Erik's temple.

"Whatever are you looking for?" Erik murmurs, reaching up to wrap his fingers gently around Charles's wrist.

"I'm looking for hope," Charles whispers. He lets his hand drift down and touches the center of Erik's chest. "You might have forgotten the word."

Erik pushes Charles down onto the bed and kisses him again, and if there's desperation behind it, at least Charles can match him on it. Charles grips Erik by the front of his shirt, puts his other hand behind Erik's neck and holds him there.

«Come home,» Charles says, his voice in Erik's mind again-- not the pure, clear notes from that summer day in 1962, no; sharpened with time and age, rough around the edges, and stronger somehow.

«Say that again in an hour, and I'll consider it.» Erik draws back and nuzzles Charles's cheek, leaving kisses across the soft brush of his beard, over to his earlobe, the warm curve of his jaw.

«In an hour the only thing you'll be considering is whether you can handle another go,» Charles sends, pushing Erik up slightly so he can look at him. «Tell me you're coming home, first.»

Erik thinks about it. «I won't make you a promise I can't keep.»

«You never did,» Charles sends. It's faintly bitter; it leaves Erik with a taste in his mouth like coffee and copper. «You never made any promises at all, did you?»

«Six months,» Erik says. «And we'll talk about the future then.»

Charles exhales. It's not what Erik suspects he wanted-- Charles has always loved winning as much as Erik has-- but eventually he nods. «I'll take it,» he agrees. «Now come here.»

That's something Erik doesn't need to be talked into. He stretches out at Charles's side, kissing him again. That flutter under his breastbone is harder now, faster. He might have forgotten the word, but he thinks Charles may teach it to him all over again.


End file.
